


My Cathedral is the Badlands

by aghamora



Series: and the bible didn’t mention us [1]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Bandits & Outlaws, F/M, Gunslinger Laurel, Kidnapping, Non-Graphic Violence, Outlaw Frank, kidnapping kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-23 05:10:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: “And then he rolls over, and peers up at the figure looming over him, having lowered their hood to reveal their face; a woman’s face, expressionless, with sharply elegant features and silver moonlight catching in her eyes, making the irises gleam, as lethal as the barrel of the gun he finds himself staring down.And of course Frank starts to laugh. Because at this point he figures there’s nothing else to do.”Or, Frank is an outlaw. Laurel is a bounty hunter. There are a variety of ways this could end; maybe, if he's lucky, he’ll make it out alive in at least one of them.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> So, I’ve been itching to start working on some Flaurel AU’s, and initially the plan was to lump them all together into one multi-chap, but I think I like doing them individually as part of a series better. There’s less commitment... which I’m all about.
> 
> This not so lil AU was inspired by the song [Chasing Twisters by Delta Rae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgRN1UMtdu0), which is the source of the title (and also sort of served as inspo for the backstory of this version of Laurel). I can’t guarantee these AU’s will ever be totally historically accurate re: gender roles in the times, but. Fuck historical gender roles. It’s more fun this way.
> 
> This is a two parter, the next part will up soon!! Shoutout to Em for making me add the kidnapping kink tag.... thanks 4 that em.

It’s his own fault, really. As much as getting captured can _be_ one’s own fault.

He stays too long at The Parlour, a tiny, ramshackle watering hole in the center of town, but a favorite of the locals, and a favorite of the local ladies – which means, consequently, that it’s a favorite of his. They serve shit whiskey, probably cut with turpentine or God knows what else and likely to put him in his grave one of these days faster than any lawman, but the company is pleasant enough that he doesn’t much care, and he loses himself in a woman with a sizable bosom until his head is heavy and his vision a warm, bleary haze.

He doesn’t know what time it is when he finally gets tossed out on his ass; late, he figures, and politely, albeit drunkenly, declines the woman’s offer to spend a night with her upstairs for a nominal fee. Some way or other he must manage to saddle his horse and hop on, though he doesn’t remember how, and has no real concept of where he’s headed; the next town over is smaller, safer, a nest of bandits like him with a boardinghouse that’s all but become his home, and it isn’t far. Not far at all, really.

That’s his drunken reasoning, at least – but like the majority of all drunken reasoning, it turns out to be dead wrong.

It doesn’t register, at first; the clopping of hooves kicking up dirt behind him, soft, distant, but undeniably there. He’s going slow, because he’s not altogether certain his stomach could handle fast at the moment, and the rider behind him is following at a similar pace, steady but unhurried. Calculated, in a way that’s noticeable.

He glances back – once, twice, peering over his shoulder and finding a slender, cloaked figure trailing him, maintaining a distance he can tell is purposely safe. And he’s drunk off his ass, sure, but he can smell danger like a wolf, has been trained to sense it since he was a babe in the cradle, though it doesn’t do much to sharpen his senses right then.

He guides his horse off the path to see if the rider will follow, or maybe to escape, or perhaps both – and sure enough, like a specter in the night, they do. It takes a moment to register that they’re gaining ground on him, zeroing in fast, and before he knows it he’s launched into a gallop, the night rushing past him in a blur, most shapes indiscernible from one another and the summer wind whipping at his face. His eyes have acclimated to the lack of light just about as well as they’re likely to, but that doesn’t do much to help his already-impaired vision, and a thin, prickly tree branch _thwacks_ him in the face before he can dodge it.

He isn’t entirely sure how it happens.

The branch doesn’t fell him, but as they gallop through the underbrush, over bushes and logs and tumbleweeds, it isn’t long before he ends up felled anyway, his horse spooking and rearing up, tossing him into a pathetic heap into the dust and galloping off.

His hat goes flying. He thinks he hears something _crack_ – his arm, maybe, and suddenly all he knows is searing, white-hot pain. Behind him, he hears the rider come to a stop, hears the swift, decisive _thump_ of boots dismounting, crunching on the dirt as they approach and come to stand over him, and he always figured he’d meet his end for being a fool, one way or another; he just didn’t think it’d be for being a drunken one.

He’d really been hoping to go out with something a bit more _blaze of glory_ than this.

“Who’re you?” he slurs, and rolls over, reaching into his holster and fumbling for his pistol with clumsy fingers. “Stand back or I’ll light you up like-”

And then he rolls over, and peers up at the figure looming over him, having lowered their hood to reveal their face; a woman’s face, expressionless, with sharply elegant features and silver moonlight catching in her eyes, making the irises gleam, as lethal as the barrel of the gun he finds himself staring down.

And of course Frank starts to laugh. Because at this point he figures there’s nothing else to do.

“You-” he sputters, guffawing. “You’re a-” He lets his head rest back in the dirt, laughing raucously again. “Fuck. Well, always did wanna die in the arms of a beautiful woman. Long as you shoot me and promise to hold me after, I gu-”

A cold, metallic _whip_ of a pistol across his cheek. And then all he knows is darkness.

 

~

 

Frank wakes to the dying embers of a fire and the harsh pull of rope around his wrists.

The pain in his arm hits him first – probably just a sprain, though he won’t rule out a break just yet – but he doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t so much as move. He may be nursing one mother of a hangover, but he’s alert enough to recognize the need for a moment to assess his surroundings, get his bearings, and so he does, though it’s hard to see anything where he’s lying, resting on his side in the dirt with his arms pinioned behind his back, his ankles similarly restrained. He’s not gagged, at least, which is a small blessing, because he thinks he’ll likely need his wits to talk his way out of this one.

Blood is dripping down the side of his face, probably from the pistol whipping he’d been on the receiving end of. The fire before him is mostly a bed of ash now with a few thin trails of smoke rising from it, and a few sundry objects scattered around the camp; a blanket, a leather canteen, none of them especially remarkable. His holster rests beside them with his pistol in it, far out of reach, and he scowls at the sight.

And then he shifts. And that’s when he sees her.

She’s sitting on the opposite side of the fire, propped up against a fallen tree and cleaning her revolver idly, head bowed, the wide brim of her hat obscuring her face from view at first. After a moment, however, she adjusts, and her face comes into view, those same iron-forged yet delicate features, determined jawline, intelligent eyes, dark hair. Young. Twenty-something, if he had to guess, but the lines on her face betray a sort of world-weariness he’s never seen on one so young.

She’s clad all in men’s clothing; dusty trousers and a buttoned vest and riding boots that look a few sizes too big for her, her petite form all but swallowed up by the incongruous ensemble. She doesn’t look dirty, though; there’s a very obvious air of grace about her, of sophistication. He grew up poor as dirt and he can tell class when he sees it, can tell it by the angle at which she holds her chin, the paleness of her skin, the delicate taper of her fingers and their clean, well-groomed fingernails.

She’s entrancing, his captor, bathed in the blue-grey light of the budding dawn. He won’t deny she’s beautiful.

But really, right now, he just wants to know _what the fuck_.

She glances up when she hears him move, head snapping in his direction with an almost bestial alertness, like a startled doe in the forest. Within seconds she’s risen to her feet and slid her gun back into the intricately-carved holster at her hip, keeping a cautious hand on it as she approaches, looking down on him with that same courage he remembers from last night; courage that belies her years and slight stature. She isn’t afraid of him.

Vaguely, he thinks this reminds him of David and Goliath, or whatever the fuck that biblical bullshit is. He’d laugh, if he didn’t think it’d earn him a bullet between the eyes right about now.

“Y’know,” he rasps, voice hoarse from the drink and disuse. “Must say, I don’t usually make a habit of meetin’ women like this.”

She gives him a long, narrow-eyed look; some kind of silent warning, he thinks, but a warning he’s going to choose to ignore. Clearly she doesn’t intend to reply, and after a moment, she bends down, pulls out a knife, and cuts the ropes on his ankles wordlessly, leaving the ones binding his wrists intact – and he’s about to make a move to swing his newly-freed legs out and bring her down with him when all at once she’s got her gun drawn again, faster than the blink of an eye, and trained with a steady hand on him.

Shit. She’s quick on the draw, he’ll give her that.

“Get up. We’re heading out,” she says finally, and her voice rings clear as a bell, each syllable bladed like a knife. There’s no western drawl in her words, perplexingly enough; her words have a different rhythm to them, though Frank thinks he’ll ponder linguistics in greater depth when he _doesn’t_ have a pistol aimed at his head. “You make one wrong move, I put a bullet in you.”

He raises his eyebrows as he hauls himself to his feet, smirking; he figures he might as well try schmoozing his way out of this situation like he has before, to admittedly varying degrees of success. He’s always had a way with women.

He has a pretty sizable hunch this one is going to prove different, though.

“Aw c’mon, sweetheart, you don’t gotta be that way.”

Her eyes darken, storm clouds rolling in over her irises. It’s the first time he truly sees danger in her.

“Call me sweetheart again,” she says, and cocks the gun with an ominous _click_ , “and I put two bullets in you.”

He pauses, giving her a quick once-over from head to toe. She’s small, a full half-foot shorter than him, not at all physically well-muscled or imposing. He’s sure he could disarm her, if he could get his hands properly untied, but he’s _also_ growing increasingly sure she isn’t bluffing when she says she’ll shoot him, regarding him with all the importance of a mosquito buzzing around her head which she hasn’t yet decided the fate of. So Frank acquiesces, giving in and following like a pitiful dog on a leash as she tugs on his rope, leading him over to her horse and holding her gun on him all the while. He’s far from entirely comfortable, at the moment – one never does get used to being held at gunpoint, really – yet he can’t help but see the humor in all this, in being taken prisoner by this small, sharp-eyed, gunslinging girl.

“Okay, okay,” he soothes, as she reaches into her saddlebag and rummages through it, jaw tight. “Can I, uh… least ask to who I owe the pleasure of being kidnapped by?”

She ignores him. He can’t say he’s surprised.

“You’re not a lawman. Or – well, lawwoman,” he observes plainly, certain of the fact; there’s something a tad bit too mercenary, too wild about this girl for that to be the case. He cocks his head to one side. “Bounty hunter then? Turnin’ me over to the hangman for a pretty penny?”

Still, no answer. In lieu of words, she reaches into her saddlebag, withdraws a piece of paper, and tosses it into the dirt before him, as if she intends that to serve as her response. It takes Frank a moment to realize what it is, but when he does he grins, finding his own paper face peering back up at him.

He quirks a brow. “Now, that’s one shit likeness. Doesn’t do the beard justice at all.”

“It says dead or alive,” she deadpans, anchoring one foot in the stirrup and swinging her leg over the saddle. “The alive part’s a courtesy. I’ll bring your body back to the sheriff if I have to.”

“What do you say we cut a deal, huh?” he proposes. “You let me go, I forget this ever happened, I cut you in on my next job and you make twice what the law’ll give you. It’d be a shame for such a pretty face to go to waste, and… Well, I’m not in the habit of killing beautiful women, but all my policies are subject to change.”

Predictably, she doesn’t deign to answer him, isn’t concerned at all with his idle threats, and Frank stands there for a moment in contemplation, at a loss for what to do, before realizing something.

“Hey,” he calls out. “That’s my hat.”

It’s true; she’s taken his hat and crowned herself with the fine black leather instead of her own, the brim scooping gracefully outward, shielding most of her face from view. It’s too big for her head, falling over her eyes a little, and it’s just a damn hat, sure, but somehow to Frank it feels like more, like this is her backhanded way of emasculating him, adding insult to proverbial injury. If it were anyone else but this girl, he thinks he’d probably be livid – but instead all he does is give a faint grin, of something like admiration.

“You’re not afraid of me because I’m a woman.” She turns back to look at him, eyes narrowed, still hard as iron. It’s a plain observation, and she doesn’t appear particularly offended, doesn’t even really seem angry. She just cocks her head to one side in thought, waiting for him to answer, and Frank shifts a bit awkwardly, not sure what kind of answer she’s fishing for.

“In my experience, miss,” he answers, squinting up at her, “most women’s hearts are just too… soft, to pull the trigger.”

“Mmm. Most.” She hums, considering that, before flicking her eyes over her shoulder one last time, giving him a cursory glance, and grabbing the reins. “Hope you’re in the mood for a run.”

He starts to ask what she means, but before he can, her steed takes off, yanking his rope forward all at once and almost sending him flying face-first into the dirt, until he steadies himself and goes scampering off behind her, the beast’s hooves kicking a generous amount of dust up into his mouth – which shuts him up right quick.

He picks up on what she means pretty fast, after that.

 

~

 

This is one miserable bitch of a situation he’s gotten himself into.

The nameless girl spends half the day dragging him behind her, and she may be giving him the courtesy of keeping him alive, but she sure as shit isn’t giving him the courtesy of pit-stops or water breaks. He has two choices, Frank figures: run, or get his arms yanked out of their sockets, and he thinks he’d at least like to keep his arms where they are for the time being – considering the fact he may be short a head soon – so he opts for the former, until his body is aching and his three-piece suit is sweat-soaked and filthy. His only distraction is watching her aback her horse, riding with a cool, steady confidence, back straight, shoulders squared, guiding the horse with the expertise of one who has been doing it their entire life, as if born with spurs on her ankles and lightning in her heels.

Could be a worse view of her, the one he has from behind. He may have a decent amount to complain about, but he’s not going to complain about that.

She stops sometime around late afternoon to water the horse at a creek they run across, and it’s only then that she finally takes pity on him, fills her canteen, and holds it out to him. He manages it, though it’s no small feat with bound hands, and gulps down the cool water greedily, his throat parched and lips cracking. The sun is high, now, blazing down on him mercilessly; he’s sorely missing his hat, though she doesn’t seem inclined to be charitable in that regard either and return it to him. So instead he settles on plopping down onto a stone heavily and letting out a breath, relieved to have his weight off his legs, if only for a minute. She’s dropped his leash, tending to her mare while keeping a sharp eye on him, and Frank considers, briefly, making a run for it, before deciding it’ll ultimately be futile; she’ll just chase him down astride her horse, and try as he might, he can’t outrun that thing.

What he _can_ do, though, is talk.

“So,” he says, still struggling to catch his breath, as she makes her way back over to him. He squints up at her, the sun almost blinding overhead. “At least gonna tell me where you’re taking me?”

No answer.

“You don’t talk a lot, do you?”

She strokes her horse absentmindedly, not sparing him so much as a glance. “You talk too much.”

“Probably true,” he concedes, chuckling. “C’mon. If you’re gonna take me to the hangman, least you could do is let me know where I’m gonna be buried. In case my ghost comes lookin’ for a place to haunt.”

A beat. Then-

“Middleton,” she divulges tersely, still without looking at him. “Sheriff Keating.”

Middleton. It’s at least a four-day ride from the last town he was in; sufficient time to mount an escape attempt, he decides, so maybe there’s no imminent cause for concern.

He raises his eyebrows, letting out a low whistle. “She’s, uh… quite a formidable woman.”

“Would you say that about her if she were a man?” she asks, finally settling her eyes on him, words as flinty as her gaze.

“Reckon I would; her stare can wither a rose. She’s not one to be trifled with.” She pauses, cocking her head to one side in tacit acknowledgement, and they’re silent, for a moment, before Frank speaks up again. “You really don’t feel bad about bringin’ me in? I mean-” He nods back at his tied wrists, feigning wide-eyed innocence. “I’m like a lamb to the slaughter here.”

She scoffs and plucks the canteen out of his hands, gulping some water down for herself with a distinct lack of grace, the droplets mixing with the sweat beading on her upper lip. He’s no lamb and they both know that perfectly well – though he suspects she’s hardly one either, at the end of the day.

“Okay. Don’t answer me,” he quips, staring out at the unforgiving badlands around them, the arid, harshly jutting landscape. “All those posters the sheriff puts up though… what made you pick mine? Was it the famous beard? Had to see it in person?”

She remains silent, but there’s nothing petty or particularly obstinate about her silence; she just doesn’t seem to regard answering him as something worth doing, and so she doesn’t bother. It seems to be her natural state, this silence, this lack of words – but of course Frank isn’t going to let it be. He never leaves things be, and her quiet unnerves him a good deal more than he’d like to admit.

“Or was it the reward? Gonna buy yourself a new dress with the blood money? Other men out here would be worth more. And, I mean, if you turn me over to the law… wouldn’t it be such a waste of a handsome fa-”

He blinks, and suddenly she’s standing over him, forcing a bandana into his mouth to gag him and tying it behind his head, evidently unamused by his babbling. She manages it quickly, before he can really realize what she’s doing, and when she’s finished and draws back, hands on her hips, all Frank can do this time is stare.

Well. Realistically he should have anticipated this.

Again, he finds himself almost admiring her – this strange girl who’s stolen his hat, tied him up, gagged him, and doesn’t seem to give even the most remote echo of a fuck about any of it – but the loss of his speech is slightly worrying, because fast-talking has gotten him out of sticky situations more times than he can count, and stripped of his pistol, it’d been his only weapon here. He could still run at her now, tackle her and take her down with sheer brute force, but with bound hands he’s not going to have any luck wrestling her pistol away from her, and he knows that, and he’s not going to chance the lead in his belly he’d likely receive if he tried.

He’s still not entirely sure she’d actually shoot him. But it’s also not a hypothesis he’s keen on testing out, at present.

“We’re heading out,” is all she says. “Get up.”

Not having much of a choice in the matter, Frank stands and follows her over back to her horse, which she mounts with ease, tugging him behind her, sweating and panting like a muzzled hound. He’s not looking forward to running another five or ten or twenty miles, but he can’t exactly protest and isn’t partial to the idea of being dragged, so he goes, standing by as she readies herself.

The thundering sound of approaching horses, however, stills her all at once.

Frank turns, and finds himself confronted by the sight of four men on horseback rising up on the horizon, galloping their way towards them. It’s not too peculiar of a sight; this is a road with free passage for all, but she seems to sense danger of some sort, because she urges her horse forward in the opposite direction, with a sort of frantic motion that betrays fear, and Frank follows, stumbling a little on his unsteady legs. The group seems to have taken notice of her – a woman in these parts is certainly an anomaly – and increases speed, circling around and cutting them off on the road, surrounding them like a wake of vultures. They’re greasy, ill-kempt, disreputable-looking men, outlaws or bounty hunters – sometimes Frank doesn’t think there’s much of a difference between the two – and he watches her go tense at the sight of them, her hand coming to rest instinctively on her holster as they grind to a halt.

“Can I help you gentlemen with something?” she asks, voice clear and strong as a bell, but he can tell she’s afraid, even if she isn’t giving any outward sign of the fact. She isn’t one to cower, this girl.

Not a girl, he thinks. A woman. He doesn’t think these men have properly grasped the concept of who they’re dealing with.

To be fair, though, he doesn’t think _he_ really has yet, either.

“Think you can, little missy,” one calls out, and nods down at Frank. “This man here. Frank Delfino. Notorious bandit. Robbed a bank up in Abilene, killed five men. What’s a nice girl like you doin’ with the likes of him?”

She raises her chin. “Taking him to the sheriff in Middleton.”

“Ah,” another chimes in, smirking and spitting into the dirt as the others snicker around them. Frank can only assume he’s the leader, by the way the other men yield to him. “So you’re a bounty hunter, sweetheart? Well, isn’t that adorable. Got a gun and everything.”

“Isn’t your daddy worried about you?” one sneers. “Out here all by yourself? Might run into some trouble.”

Her eyes darken, at the mention of her father; clearly the man has touched a sore spot, and he can see the muscles in her jaw ripple as she clenches it, head held high, the strength of armies contained beneath her skin. For once he’s happy to have been relieved of the burden of speech, just to be granted the opportunity to listen to her voice.

“A bounty hunter like you, I assume,” she shoots back, unfazed. “Now you go about your business and I’ll go about mine.”

“Don’t think so, honey,” the leader says, amusement in his eyes. “That man you got there has one hell of a price on his head. Five thousand-dollars. I’m not about to let that money walk. Now-” He guides his horse in closer, gesturing vaguely in Frank’s direction. “You’re a lady, so I’ll be chivalrous and give you two choices: you can hand him over and we’ll let you be on your merry way – or you can put up a fight, and me and my men’ll share you around our campfire tonight. What’s it gonna be?”

Frank holds his breath, watching closely as she turns the options over in her hands. He isn’t going to lie; if he’s going to be someone’s prisoner he’d much rather be hers, because he has a feeling these men aren’t going to feel all that inclined to do him the same courtesy of keeping him alive. A lawman might, but there’s no honor when it comes to bounty hunting, and he’s more merchandise to them than he is man, at the moment. To her, too.

Something clicks into place behind her eyes, then, like a gear slotting into place. He’s sure she’s not going to give him up without a fight. But then-

“Fine,” she says calmly, as if it’s no great matter at all. She dismounts, rope still clutched in her hand, and he wonders why; atop her horse would be safer, surely, in the event she needs to make an escape. “Take him.”

The men seem puzzled by the ease of her capitulation. Frank is just as much so, and panicking more than a little, as one of the men hops off his mare too and strides over, holding out his hand expectantly for the rope. She hesitates, but ultimately complies, passing it over and backing off, eyes narrowed, stance guarded.

The man in charge tips his hat, as his associate yanks Frank in the direction of his horse, handling him with markedly less care. “Much obliged, sweetheart. You be safe out here, now.”

He feels a twinge of something like regret in his chest, as he finds himself hitched to yet another steed, pulled away from her; she’s nothing if not intriguing, that girl, that woman, and probably much less likely to put a bullet in his brain than his new captors – though the more time he’s spent with her, the more he thinks that may be debatable. He hadn’t even learned her name, and he turns his head, watching her through the waves of heat rising up from the ground as the men lead him away; thinking that if he makes it out of this alive, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t mind making her acquaintance again, one day

That doesn’t turn out to be a problem, though.

Because suddenly a gunshot cuts through the air. Then two. Three. Four. The mare he’s tied to rears up with a whinny, throwing its occupant and sending Frank tumbling to the ground along with them – and he turns, bewildered, only to see the girl approaching slowly, gun in hand, firing with impeccable aim, taking the men down one by one as if they’re little more than tin cans lined up in a row for shooting practice. The fray is chaotic, so much happening so fast, far too fast for him to get his bearings; the men fall, one after another, hitting the ground like huge sacks of blood, sacks of blood that had the very, _very_ grave misfortune of underestimating her.

Some of them try to shoot back, fumbling with their guns, but they don’t stand a chance, and before he can even blink they’ve been downed too, lying there, either groaning or moaning or both, or dead. A stray bullet strikes him in the side – one of theirs or one of hers, he can’t tell – slicing through his flesh easy as butter, and soon he’s curled up in a heap with the rest of the carnage, biting down on the gag between his teeth but too stunned to make any sound behind it, too stunned even to move.

And he watches, transfixed, as she comes closer, stepping over the men like she would pesky tumbleweeds, shooting the ones that are still breathing without so much as blinking, without even a flicker of hesitation in her trigger finger. Her eyes are glacier-cold, killer’s eyes, frigid like a winter sky under the scorching sun, and it’s with something like a mix of fascination and terror that he spectates, until she’s been rid of the last of them and finally, finally holsters her pistol, making her way over to where he lays.

She comes to a stop beside him, standing over him much like she had the previous night – only this time, in the daylight, her features are jarringly clear, her blue-grey eyes sharp as darts, something to be revered, _feared_. She’s sticky with sweat, her skin glistening, but she looks unbothered by the heat, just as unbothered as she does by the fact she just offed four men with no hesitation at all, carrying herself with the grace of a goddess, more than willing to strike down any mortals in her way.

So. Suffice to say he knows pretty _fucking_ well who he’s dealing with, now.

She stoops down, yanking the gag out of his mouth, and as soon as he’s able to form coherent speech, he sets off into a fit of profanity. “Fuck, what the… what the _fuck_ – holy fuckin’ _shit_ -”

“You’re hit?” she asks, ignoring him, and he lets his head fall back into the dirt, his body tensing and curling in on itself from the pain. He manages a nod, and she reaches out, peeling his filthy suit jacket away from his side and unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Let me see.”

It occurs to him, vaguely, that this is far different than how things usually go down when women undress him, and he’d laugh, if he weren’t overwhelmed with pain and probably damn near about to bleed out in the dirt. Once she reaches his bare skin, she examines him for a moment, before pulling back and pressing her lips into a thin line.

“Just a graze,” she remarks, dismissively, like she can’t understand why he’s making a fuss, and he thinks – vaguely, once more, because all he seems to be capable of right now is vague thought – that if she were shot in the heart she’d probably regard it as little more than a flesh wound and keep on firing away. “I’ll clean it. We’ll stop and make camp for the night.” 

“You… holy _fuck_ ,” is all he can sputter, over and over, staring up at her, mouth gaping wide enough to catch the horseflies buzzing around his head. “How the hell’d you do that?”

There’s something on her face, suddenly; a twitch, an expression he almost doesn’t recognize, and it takes him a moment, but finally, Frank realizes that she’s grinning. It’s a humorless, thin, withered little wisp of a grin, and it strikes him as harshly as the gunshot in his side, hitting him like lightning and forcing him into stillness. There’s blood spattered on her cheek, and her hair is wild and wind-blown from riding, and she’s terrifying, fearsome enough to stop his heart, and _God_.

He thinks he’s never seen anyone more beautiful.

“Still think my heart’s too soft to pull the trigger?” she asks, cuts the rope on his hands, and watches as he clambers his way to his feet.

All Frank can do is stare back at her. Because in all honesty, he has no goddamn clue _what_ to think anymore.


	2. Part II

They make camp in a clearing in the woods a ways off the road.

She builds a low fire, no more than they need to keep the smoke to a minimum, and opens a can of peaches, popping a few in her mouth before reaching for a bottle of whiskey and striding over to where he sits, resting up against a log, his waistcoat and undershirt unbuttoned and his wound exposed, large and bloody. It isn’t exceptionally deep; it’s not going to do him any real harm if he can avoid infection, and she must be thinking precisely the same thing, because without warning she reaches for a rag in her pack, wets it with a healthy splash of whiskey, and presses it up against the gash, biting her lower lip in concentration.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he curses, wincing and rubbing at his wrists; the rope had left them red and raw, but the pain is dull compared to the pain in his side. “Shit, that hurts.”

She seems unconcerned, and after cleaning the wound for a while she tips the bottle back again, this time into her mouth, taking a long, slow swig of it. It’s expensive whiskey – he can tell by the label; expensive like her holster and her pistol and her mare, and it only thickens the enigma surrounding her like a fog. He wants to ask about the whiskey, about her money, about what the hell she’s doing out here in the middle of fucking nowhere and _where_ the hell she learned to be a damn sharpshooter who could take out four men singlehanded from a hundred yards away. He wants to know everything, beyond reason, beyond sense, wants to hear her talk until her mouth has run as dry of words as a river in the desert.

Instead, all he says is: “Guess I should be, uh, thankin’ you, on account of you saving my life and all. Those men would’ve shot me dead instead of being as… hospitable, as you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she mutters, eyes flicking over to look at his bare chest, his gilded, sculpted abdomen flickering in the firelight. They shoot away as quick as bullets, but he notices. He notices everything. “You’re still gonna end up where they were gonna take you.”

“Still. At least the journey there’ll be more pleasant. As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death and all that.”

“I didn’t do any of that to save you. I’m not losing out on your bounty.”

“So is that why you do this?” He chuckles, taking the rag from her and continuing to dab at the wound himself. “If you’re lookin’ to get rich quick, I can guarantee crime pays better than bounty hunting.”

“I don’t do it for the money, either,” she says, a bit snappish, and rises to stand, settling back down in her spot from before, across the fire. “I do it because it’s the right thing to do, locking up men like you. It’s justice.”

He scoffs. “You tell me how you’re any better than I am. I just watched you gun down four innocent men-”

“Innocent?” she snorts. “If I hadn’t let them take you, they would’ve raped me. Taken turns.” She clenches her jaw, simmering with fury. “No man puts his hands on me unless I want him to.”

They lapse into tightly coiled silence, for a while, and it feels strange, this tension in the air between them, but also needed, like something they shouldn’t try to fill. Finally, she seems to come to a decision and stands all at once, grabbing a length of rope from her saddlebag, stalking back over to him, and reaching for his hands.

He mock-groans. “Oh, c’mon. You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone. Especially you,” is all the answer she gives him, and – well, he can’t argue with that.

“I could put up a fight,” he observes, as he lets her bind his wrists once more. “Wouldn’t take much effort to knock you on your ass.”

“You could,” she admits, softening somewhat, with a barely detectable note of humor in her voice. “But then I’d just kill you.”

He chuckles. “Yeah. I imagine you would.”

Ultimately, Frank thinks, the end result will be the same: either he dies at her hand or he dies at the sheriff’s, and he strongly suspects the former would be quicker, less painful, and as a whole more desirable. Still, though, there’s something that feels rather noncommittal about this kidnapping now, about him letting her tie his hands when he could so easily fight her, about the almost cavalier manner in which they discuss his demise. There’s nothing imperative about how this has to turn out, really; she’s beholden only to her conscience in the end. She doesn’t have to turn him in, if she decides she doesn’t want to.

That doesn’t mean she still won’t end up shooting him, for some reason or other. But there’s a look in her eyes that makes Frank suspect she just might like him a little too much to do that.

“Okay. How ‘bout we make a trade?” he proposes, pragmatic as ever. “I let you tie me up again, you at least tell me your name.”

She pauses, thinking over that for a long moment. She doesn’t need to. He has no bargaining power in this situation at all, and there’s no point in getting to know each other when he’s just a means to an end for her, a sack of useless flesh she can turn into cash, a killer she can lock away for – well, he doesn’t know why she feels the need to wear some white hat, do the _right thing_ , but he supposes she must have her reasons; everyone in these parts seems to have some chip on their shoulder or other.

“Laurel,” she tells him, finally. Her voice is softer, devoid for once of its sharp edges, its bite, like she’s exposing her underbelly to him, that most vulnerable part that really shouldn’t be vulnerable at all. It’s just a name. But somehow it feels like she’s offering him more. “Castillo.”

“Castillo, huh?” he echoes, raising an eyebrow. “You from south of the border? Wouldn’t have guessed.”

“What, because I can speak English? Surprisingly we Mexicans can manage that.”

“Nah, I just…” He shrugs. “Wouldn’t have guessed, I dunno. Then what the hell are you doin’ all the way up here in the badlands?”

Laurel scowls, clearly disconcerted by the question. Quickly, Frank gets the sense that he’s pressed too far, made a misstep, and his suspicions are confirmed when she stands without warning, retreating out to the edge of the firelight and taking a seat where the flickering circle meets the darkness.

“I’ll keep watch,” she says, and it’s clear the conversation is over.

 

~

 

“I may not be from these parts,” Laurel tells him the next morning, as they set out just after dawn on horseback, “but judging by that accent, you aren’t either.”

Frank, sitting aback one of the bounty hunters’ horses she’d been kind enough to commandeer for his use, raises his eyebrows. It’s not an overly difficult realization to come to; he sounds nothing like the other men around here, all western drawls and crass slang, though he’s picked up some things here and there, in the interest of blending in.

He thinks outsiders are always able to sense other outsiders with ease, though.

“No,” he answers, finally. “I’m not.”

“Where, then?”

“Out east,” he tells her. “City called Philadelphia.”

She hums. “I’ve heard of it. Why come west, then?”

“It’s the land of opportunity, ain’t it?” he quips. “A whole new world of banks to rob and beautiful women to… well, you know.”

She shoots him a look of disdain he doesn’t think is feigned at all. “You’re a scoundrel.”

“Never said I wasn’t.”

“You know,” she remarks, as she guides his horse along behind hers, his hands still rendered useless by the rope, “for a so-called notorious bandit, you didn’t put up much of a fight. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten yourself strung up by the neck sooner.”

“Maybe I was havin’ an off night.”

“Maybe you’re just an idiot,” she retorts, and he laughs.

“Maybe,” he admits, smirking. “What about you?”

Laurel glances back at him. “What _about_ me?”

“One day, same thing’ll happen to you. Someone’ll catch you with your guard down, and they won’t be a gentleman like me. They’ll fill your belly with lead, or… worse, seeing as you’re of the gentler sex.” He pauses, lowering his voice. “You’re gonna get yourself killed, one day.”

He knows he’s right, and he finds himself suddenly, illogically terrified for this dauntless girl. She may give off all appearances of being hard – hell, she may even really _be_ hard – but when it comes down to it she’s young, a foreigner, an outsider, a candle burning at both ends that will inevitably burn itself out sooner rather than later, if she isn’t careful. She needs to know who she can trust in this lawless gaggle of thieves and outlaws and bounty hunters and savages.

He thinks he’d like to be the one to teach her.

Laurel halts her horse suddenly, and the look she fixes him with cuts like a knife, would probably slit his jugular and watch him bleed with no qualms about it, if looks alone were capable of doing such a thing.

“You could ride with me.” He feels as timid as a schoolboy, and he hates it, and he marvels at her, at her ability to reduce him to this, though he patches over the feeling with a look of affected nonchalance. “I’d keep you safe.”

She scoffs, and dismounts, walking over to him and gesturing for him to do the same. “I don’t need a man to keep me safe.”

He obeys, and doesn’t try to argue with her; it’s clear she could give a fuck about his advice, and he also thinks that’s very possibly true, that she doesn't need a protector now, never has and never will. Wordlessly, she leads him over to a rock and pushes him down before it, tying his ankles with quick, precise movements.

He frowns. “What’re you doing?”

“Bathing,” she replies shortly, and stands, nodding over at the river behind them. “Stay here.”

She takes off toward the bank, and he raises an eyebrow, calling out after her, “Mind if I join?”

Laurel ignores him rather pointedly, and after she disappears he sits for a while, idly, sweating underneath the brutal sun, staring at the rope on his hands, and feeling more than a little like a huge fucking idiot. He has no clue what he’s doing, letting this Laurel Castillo drag him across the desert like a dog, letting her lead him to his death, though he’s no longer sure that’s what her intention is, anymore. She’s perplexing, bewildering, far too taciturn and solemn for her youth; a mystery of a girl. He doesn’t understand her, and he’s never met a woman like her. He probably never will again.

She isn’t the kind of woman to be had. Possessed. Yet he wants to possess her utterly. He wants all of her.

_She_ wants to kill him. But maybe they can find some sort of happy medium.

He turns his head, and that’s when he catches a glimpse of her naked body, waded up to her knees in the water. He doesn’t mean to look, isn’t even really trying, but he finds his hungry eyes drawn in that direction before he can help himself, and he’s parched, hasn’t had a drop of water in God knows how long, but simply looking upon her feels satiating, so much more than he could ever want. She’s slender, all graceful, flowing curves and firm muscles and lean limbs. Her skin is milk-pale, not tan and leathery like most who have spent their lives underneath the western sun; he imagines it must be soft to the touch. Her ass is small, pert, and he can’t see her front but he imagines her breasts must be much the same. When she bends down, wetting her hair and exposing her backside to him further, he thinks he comes damn close to expiring right then and there.

And then she does it. She looks back, and she meets his eyes.

She must have felt his gaze on her somehow, and he’d been staring so hard he’s not altogether surprised she had. Their eyes lock, and he freezes, and it plucks at his heartstrings, the sight of her, makes his throat close up and his chest tighten. Only she doesn’t scowl like he’d expected, hasten to cover herself; she simply holds his stare, returning it, those eyes of hers burning into his like blue flame, unashamed of her nakedness – and after a moment Frank is the one to look away, sweat beading on his brow.

It doesn’t take him long to realize that she’d done this on purpose. Nor does it take him long to realize why.

 

~

 

On the third day, the skies open up on them.

A storm has been brewing since late morning, the clouds above turning grey and swelling, pregnant with the promise of rain. The smell of an approaching thunderstorm is thick in the air, humidity layering over them, and they just barely manage to scramble their way to shelter when it begins to come down in earnest, the wind whipping the droplets almost horizontally, pelting them like a million tiny bullets. It agitates their horses, but they manage to ride up into the hills and locate a cave without being thrown, where Laurel sets about stripping enough kindling to start a fire. It’s difficult, and takes far longer than it should with the damp wood, but eventually she builds it into a steady, crackling flame, which he looks upon with admiration from his spot seated beside it, wrists still bound but ankles thankfully free, for once.

“Well,” he observes, grinning as she rises to stand with a huff. “Looks like you didn’t need that bath after all.”

There’s a shift in the air, right then, and it’s palpable between them, like the very crust of the earth has moved beneath their feet, like the planets in the night sky have realigned. Frank can’t tell exactly what causes it, if it’s like the storm outside, if it’s been brewing for hours, days, but all he knows is that it happens and there's no going back once it has, and she turns to look at him, eyes narrowed, feet shoulder-width apart, stance firm, as if she were rooted there. She’s sopping wet, dripping on the ground, the fabric of her vest and shirt beneath soaked through, though her hair is mostly dry, thanks to his hat.

That’s when her fingers go for the first button.

They slip it through, and it springs free almost joyfully, and her eyes are hooded and heavy when they come to rest on him. “You watched me, when I bathed. At the river.”

His mouth is dry, suddenly, all the moisture sucked out of it, as dry as the barren plains around them. All he can do is watch, silent and almost too aroused to draw breath, as she disrobes before him, shucking her vest with a sort of contempt. Her next victim is his hat, followed by her belt and boots, and it takes her a moment to shimmy her way out of her wet trousers, but soon she’s rid of them too. Her eyes never leave his, not for a second, as she observes every twitch of expression on his face, every flicker of emotion, every hitch of his breath as more and more of her flesh comes into view.

Then, her shirt is gone. And he forgets how to breathe after that.

Because she’s standing before him, naked as the day she was born, head held high, unflappable and unflustered and entirely composed. It’s the same way she’d stared at him in the river, only this time she’s so impossibly _close_ , her stomach and breasts and the rolling mound between her thighs a feast for his gaze, her body slender, coltish, from what he can only assume is a lifetime of riding. The firelight licks across her skin, alternates in patterning her with red-gold and deep shades of orange, and half of her may be thrown into shadow, on account of the darkness of the night around them, but to him, she’s perfectly clear; radiant as a sinful little sun.

It feels right that he should be gazing up at her from below. Really, he feels like he ought to be on his knees, hands clasped before her in supplication.

It’s too much, so much at once and so sudden, that for some inexplicable reason Frank finds himself averting his eyes – not that he’s ever given a fuck about a woman’s modesty, about all things good and right and proper, and if he had to make a guess he’d say she doesn’t, either.

“What?” Laurel presses, and takes a step closer to him. “You looked before. Can’t look now?”

She’s torturing him. She’s going to fucking kill him, and she doesn’t need her pistol or her knife or any weapon to do it; she just needs to do _this_. He’s sure she isn’t going to let him touch her. She isn’t selfless. She isn’t a merciful goddess. She’s probably doing this for the sole purpose of torturing him, amusing herself. She seems to be waiting for something, for him to say something, make a move, though he doesn’t know what she’s expecting; he can’t move much like this, restrained, powerless, and maybe, probably, that’s exactly how she wants him. All he can do is look, hard and fast and desperate, soaking in the sight greedily, burning it onto the backs of his eyelids like a brand. His thoughts multiply and overwhelm like the drone of a beehive, until they’re deafening, until they drown out everything, until it all fades to silence behind his eyes and all he can hear is the thundering of his telltale heart.

All he can manage is her name, his voice rasping and thick. “Laurel…”

She sinks down into his lap without warning, still holding his gaze steadily, still not shrinking away, bold and brash and sure. She’s sure of what she wants, and she strikes him as the kind of woman to _take_ what she wants, and before he knows it he’s hard as a rock in his trousers, feeling her wriggle against him, her body supple and warm, and slick from the rain. She leans in, without sparing him a word, kissing him deeply, combing her fingers through his beard, his damp hair, tugging him closer. She’s hungry, voracious, kissing him like a python trying to swallow him whole, and he’s more than willing to let her. He’s more than willing to let her do _anything_.

Her lips are on his neck, then, and he can’t help the moan that bursts past his lips. “Cut me loose.”

He’s begging her. He needs to touch her, get his hands on her body, feel her, because this is so much but somehow it’s still not enough; _nothing_ is ever enough, and he’s just as hungry and greedy as she is, and he can’t deny it. It feels like he’s waited centuries for this moment though he’s barely known her three days, like his body, his soul recognizes her, like he knew her in some past life and their energies have found one another again in this world, colliding like two comets in the night sky with catastrophic results. And this _is_ going to be a catastrophe, he can tell. One hell of a sweet disaster.

Laurel doesn’t answer. Her hands continue roaming his body, peeling off his damp suit jacket and undoing the buttons on his waistcoat. He gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing as her teeth rake across it.

“Cut me loose,” he entreats, again, voice breaking this time. She draws back, looking him in the eyes, licking her moist lips. He wants to kiss them until they’re swollen, bruised, kiss her like she’s never been kissed in her life. Kiss her like she deserves to be kissed. “Please.”

That seems to be what she wants. Finally, Laurel relents, drawing back, locating her pocketknife, and sawing at the rope binding his wrists until it comes undone – and within seconds he’s upon her, pouncing like a tiger and rolling her over and pinning her down beneath him. There’s a flash of something in her eyes, like she senses she’s made a grave miscalculation, and Frank thinks, briefly, that she probably has. Cutting him loose is a bad bet for her, and, objectively, fairly stupid. He could kill her. He could escape.

He doesn’t want to do either of those things. Instead, he just kisses her again.

She relaxes when he does, opening up beneath him like the petals of a rose in the sun, and it’s wild, messy, not at all gentle, too much spit and teeth and tongue, sloppy in just the way he likes it. He yanks at his suit jacket and waistcoat and shirt savagely, all of them clinging to him like a limp second skin, and his hands explore her body, pawing at her, pinching her nipples, almost _ravaging_ her like a beast released from its cage, basking in its newfound freedom and ready to devour the master that’d caged it in the first place.

But she doesn’t want tender, or loving; he knows when women want tender and loving, and she isn’t the type, doesn’t need to cloak what this is in any delusions of romance. He wants her. He wants her in a way he’s never felt before, in a way that feels soul-deep, every atom of his body screaming to get as close to her as possible, and when he finally sinks into her it feels like coming home, to the child inside him who never knew a proper one.

Outside, the storm howls, and he fucks her until they howl with it.

 

~

 

 She’s sitting up by the fire when he wakes, in the morning.

Frank watches her for a while, in silence, mystified and as infatuated as a child. She’s beautiful, in a hardened, sharp sort of way; beautiful in that perilous manner only deadly things can be, and maybe that’s what intrigues him so, that longing to know what hardened her heart, withered the flower of her youth before its time. He was carefree and careless and stupid when he was young; she’s so serious, holding everything with too great a weight. She’s young, in body, in her flesh, but somehow he can tell she’s never been _young_.

Maybe he never has been, either.

The thin dawn light filters into the cave gradually, pouring over her where she sits, half-dressed and disheveled, eyes distant, as though trapped in a memory. He wants so badly to know what she’s thinking about.

Really, more than anything, he longs to know _her_.

“Hey,” he greets, finally, and she startles, coming back to herself.

Then, a smile; the first genuine one he thinks he’s ever seen from her. It’s small, and forms slowly, slow as a glacier melts, but it forms just the same. “Good morning.”

He hauls himself to his feet, tugging on his trousers and undershirt and coming to sit beside her. Frank brushes her hair to the side and lays his lips on her neck, not entirely sure if she’ll flinch and move away, and he’s pleasantly surprised when she proves receptive, humming contently.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he murmurs, and she blinks, before giving a distracted little smile again.

“I’ll consider it,” she replies, “when you actually have a penny to give me.”

He raises his eyebrows and reaches into his pockets, rummaging for a moment, before withdrawing a shiny penny and holding it out to her, eyebrows raised.

She scoffs, then grows serious. “Uh, nothing. It was… nothing.”

“Tell me,” he urges, scooting closer to her and frowning when she inches away an almost imperceptible distance, curling in on herself like a turtle into its shell. “C’mon, now that we’re so… intimately acquainted.”

She fixes him with a look. “You think because we fucked once we have to tell each other our life stories?”

“To be fair, it was more ‘n once.” He cocks his head to one side, playfully. “Never did tell me you ended up so far north of the border. Don’t have any family? Ophaned or somethin’?” Laurel tenses beside him, and again it’s almost imperceptible, but more than enough for him to notice. She doesn’t answer, and he nudges her, grinning, trying to draw something out of her; even the tiniest grain of information she’ll give him, like panning for scraps of gold. “Must be a reason a rich girl like you ran away, why you’re so damn angry all the time. Father beat you? Boyfriend jilt you?”

There’s a flash in her eyes when he mentions the latter, those same storm clouds from before rolling in, and without warning Laurel shoots to her feet. “You’re an ass.”

She tugs on her trousers, and he watches, dumbfounded. “Huh?”

“You don’t know anything about my life,” she spits, “and I don’t owe you my story.”

“I was just curious – you don’t gotta-”

“I’ll ready the horses,” she cuts him off, but softens somewhat, a look of hurt briefly wearing away the anger wrought into the lines on her face. “And if I have to, I’ll gag you again.”

They ride out into the chilly morning not long after, the ground still muddy from the storm. She ties his hands, leads his horse as per usual, but doesn’t gag him as she’d threatened. Instead she just spends the day ignoring him, and for once he has the good sense to leave her be, not poke the lightly slumbering bear that is Laurel Castillo’s temper. They probably should’ve reached town a few hours ago, and he doesn’t know where they’re headed, anymore; there’s something about this trek that feels vaguely directionless now, like Laurel herself no longer knows where she’s leading him, where she wants to go, what she wants to do with him. And Frank doesn’t know what this has evolved into, this once-kidnapping, but he isn’t going to ask and risk her reconsidering, turning around and bringing him straight to Sheriff Keating’s door.

He lost the will to escape what feels like ages ago. It may be kind of fucked, how okay he is with this.

They stop close to dusk, and make camp in another nondescript clearing in another nondescript part of the woods. Laurel shares her dinner of canned beans and dried beef with him, but doesn’t acknowledge him otherwise; something he’d said had reopened an old, festering wound, triggered a landmine buried deep within her, and she’s more withdrawn than she was even during their first few days together. Even her silence feels different, heavy and thick as molasses, standoffish. Her whiskey makes a reappearance – a coping mechanism he certainly can’t fault her for – and she gulps it down quickly without so much as flinching, apparently accustomed to the burn of hard liquor.

And finally, after a good portion of the bottle has vanished, she speaks.

“There was… someone,” she mutters, so soft he can barely hear her over the crackling of the campfire and the crying of the coyotes. He doesn’t think she’s drunk, but the liquor seems to have loosened her tongue enough to get her talking, and so he listens, silent, transfixed. “His name was Wes. He was a ranch hand, on my father’s land. We were together, and he was good to me. He was so… good.” She stares down into her bottle, jaw clenched. “My father didn’t approve, so he had him killed. A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.” She swallows. “I lost the baby too.”

She looks so weathered by grief, worn down like the badlands around them by the wind and elements, eroded into something rough and bitter and solitary. He’s known loss, hardship, but it doesn’t feel like his holds a candle to hers, and he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do. Frank doesn’t imagine she would’ve been very happy with a life so domestic and droll, settling down into a rocking chair with a babe at her breast at the end of each day; she doesn’t seem the type. But she seems to be mourning what could have been, all that promise and possibility lost to death, and he can’t fault her for that, either.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, lowly, and she shakes her head, takes another swig.

“Don’t be.”

She gets up and comes to sit beside him once more, holding out the bottle for him to take. He raises his eyebrows, gesturing at his bound hands, and she rolls her eyes but cuts him loose, allowing him to take the bottle and drink deeply. It’s a warm, smooth burn – expensive whiskey, just like he’d guessed – and after a moment he licks his lips, looking over at her.

“Should be comin’ up on Middleton tomorrow,” he states. “Still gonna turn me over to Keating?”

Laurel shrugs. “Haven’t decided yet.”

There’s sorrow in her eyes, at the mention of their parting, and it may be simply because she’s a gloomy drunk, but he suspects it’s something that runs deeper. She’s lonely, he thinks, when it comes down to it in the end; roaming the plains with only the ghost of her lover to accompany her, living a life that isn’t all too welcoming to love, or even companionship, when out here companions and lovers can so quickly betray you. His life is largely the same, save for a drunken tumble in the sheets now and then with the nameless, faceless women in the brothels.

He’s lonely, too. But maybe he doesn’t have to be. Maybe _they_ don’t have to be.

“Maybe,” he teases, moving in closer, “you like me just a little too much.”

That coaxes a wry grin onto her lips. “Keep talking, I’ll gag you again.”

“You could. But you won’t,” Frank undertones, and leans in closer, pressing his lips against hers. “Because if you did… I couldn’t do this.”

She kisses back, harsh and ferocious, and she tastes like whiskey, smells like earth, and she’s all he’s ever wanted and so, so much more. She lays a blanket down and spreads him out on top of it, riding him underneath the stars like he’s a wild horse she means to break, her hair and skin washed in the silver moonlight. Frank watches, and lets her, because there’s little else he can do, little else he _wants_ to do.

He could die a happy man, right then. And if she does take him to meet his maker in the morning, he thinks he can be content with this as his last night.

 

~

 

But she doesn’t.

He doesn’t know exactly when this little escapade of theirs became less _kidnapping_ and more _honeymoon_ , but somewhere along the line it did. He loses track of the days they spend riding through the badlands together, stopping at outposts here and there for supplies but spending their nights together making love beneath the stars, moaning into the heavens as the howls of coyotes fill the night with them. He’s never imagined there could be such a thing as heaven on earth, but there is, and he’s found it in this dry, deserted, miserable land, in this peculiar rolling stone of a woman named Laurel Castillo.

Bit by bit, eventually, he works her story out of her.

She was raised smack dab on the border, grew up dancing in between two worlds. Her father was a rich _hacendado_ who made his fortune off the mines on his land, but with his wealth came corruption, the serpent underneath the flower. She was kidnapped at sixteen by a group of men, his enemies, and only made it out alive by slitting one of their throats and escaping. She shot the man who killed her Wes, too, an old family friend, and ran away, made a living masquerading as a boy and working on a cattle ranch, until she grew tired of hiding her sex and threw caution to the wind, letting her hair down, catching a train, and taking up her current profession.

“Tell me about… Philadelphia,” she breathes hot against his neck one night, as they lie half-clothed and sprawled out beneath the stars.

And so he tells her everything; his parents who came over on a boat from Italy, settled in South Philadelphia and opened a store, until his father’s shady dealings under the table caught up with him and ended with that store burning to the ground when Frank was seven, his parents and siblings burning with it. He tells her about the street, his early years spent steeped in crime and penury; the scruffy, skinny runaway named Bonnie who became his best friend and partner in crime. He lived there his whole life, scarcely ever venturing beyond his own tiny corner of the world, before a series of jobs went bad and he was forced to flee out west, to a new beginning – or at least some semblance of one.

“You miss it?” she asks, head resting lightly on his chest by the end of the tale. “Philadelphia?”

A rueful smile plays at his lips. “Nah. Like it better out here. And there’s one thing Philly doesn’t have.”

She rests her chin just beneath his sternum, quirking an eyebrow. “What?”

“You,” is his simple answer, and she scoffs, but looks secretly pleased.

They fall silent for a moment, letting the song of the owls and crickets and wolves wash over them, that melodic chorus of the wild punctuated now and then by the popping of the campfire.

“Tell me about Mexico,” Frank urges, after a while.

Immediately, her face twists with loathing, but she masks it well and sets about laying kisses on his chest instead, murmuring her words in between each one. “It was hell. And I’m never going back.”

“Don’t think your father’s lookin’ for you?”

“He probably is,” she sighs, as she reaches his collarbone, charting every inch of his bare skin with her lips and paying special attention to each scar, memorizing them like constellations in the night sky. “But if they ever take me home, they won’t take me alive.”

There’s a sense of doom about Laurel, Frank thinks, even as he holds her safe in his arms, like a shadow hanging over her, like she long ago accepted death as an occupational hazard and now the thought of it no longer really fazes her. He realizes that he’s probably much the same, never having lived for any reason in particular, always with one foot in the grave, one step away from the gallows.

But he thinks he wouldn’t mind living for her. If she’ll let him, that is.

“You ever gonna let me go?” he asks, finally, almost reluctantly, because _God_ , against all logic and reason, he doesn’t want to be let go. Not now. Not ever. He’ll be her prisoner forever so long as it means being near her, shackled by chains that no longer really feel like chains at all.

Laurel has reached his ear by then, nipping at the lobe, then venturing higher, to the shell, kissing the curve of bone just behind it. Her hands are everywhere, suddenly, eager palms and eager fingers, and in the blink of an eye she’s straddled him again, pinning him down underneath her with a strength remarkable for one so petite.

“ _Never_ ,” she hisses, and that’s more than all right with him.

 

~

 

They can both tell when their journey has reached its natural end.

They don’t have to discuss it, debate it. Frank has no idea how long it’s lasted, this series of detours after detours; he gave up counting the days long ago and simply lived them, yet it feels now as though their time has run its course, the last few grains of sand slipping through their hourglass. They can’t carry on like this forever, and they both know it, as much as he'd like to.

It’s close to sundown when Laurel slows her horse, just outside of a town called Goldhollow; the same town she’d found him in days or weeks or maybe months ago, Frank realizes with a start, as he comes to a stop beside her. They’ve made what must be a gigantic circle, completed their loop and wound up back here again, back where they began. He won’t deny it feels oddly fitting, in a way.

“I believe this is where we part ways,” she tells him, perched atop her horse, staring out at the hustle and bustle of the town as if looking upon some foreign land, some place she can never belong.

“Ah,” he murmurs, with a grin. “And they say parting is such sweet sorrow.”

“I have a life to return to,” she remarks, though there’s something heavy in her eyes, something like sadness, longing. “I expect you do too.”

“Ride with me,” he urges, guiding his horse closer to her. “You don’t have to be alone. I-” He falters, and goes quiet, before clearing his throat. “I’d like it, if you came with me. I’d like it a lot.”

The words feel weightier than they are, almost like a marriage proposal, and Laurel grins when she hears them, humming in amusement.

“Or, you could ride with me,” she rebuts, stroking her horse and cocking her head to one side. A light breeze rolls through, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “Go straight. Give up crime. Join me and keep yourself out of the hangman’s knot.”

It’s tempting, he’ll admit, so tempting he nearly gives in right then and there, lets her tie him up once more, lets her lead him anywhere. He’d _follow_ her anywhere, into hell and back – but something stops him, something in his bones restraining him.

“’S all I’ve ever known,” he tells her, troubled by the truth of the words. He’s never done an honest day’s work in his life; he’s not sure he’d know how.

He thinks he could learn, though. For her.

Laurel nods, and gives him one of her slow-blooming, sad little smiles. “Then maybe we’re too different, when it comes down to it.”

He doesn’t think they’re different at all, really, though their chosen professions are fated to be always at odds. And they may be parting, may be saying their goodbyes, but they feel like rolling stones somehow, destined to roll back this way again; like tumbleweeds guided by the wind, perhaps to be guided, one day, back to each other. There’s something about Laurel Castillo that feels inevitable, no matter how far he may roam, the sheep always returning to the shepherd in the end, a compass needle forever stuck pointing due north. She looks stunning there in the fading twilight, lit from behind by the canvas of orange-gold painting the desert sky above them.

She looks far too real and far too devastatingly beautiful to ever be something that can be kept as merely a memory for long.

“Will I ever see you again?” Frank asks, and Laurel’s shrug is flippant, playful.

“Maybe if I decide to kidnap you again, one of these days.”

“I mean it,” he says, lowering his voice, an ache forming like a pit in his chest. “Will I ever see you again?”

She goes solemn too. After a moment, she nods. “I reckon you will.”

There’s nothing more to say – nothing and everything – and they can both sense it, and so after a moment Laurel turns her horse around, urging the beast into a gallop, kicking up dirt behind her. She doesn’t make it far before Frank realizes something, however, and calls out after her.

“Hey! What about my hat?”

Laurel glances over her shoulder, grinning cheekily, and reaches up, tipping the brim of the aforementioned hat to him, clearly having no intentions of returning it – until they meet again, that is. And Frank knows they will.

He doesn’t know how he knows. Just that he does.

The sun is low in the sky as she rides off toward it, gleaming orange and cloaking her in shadow, until all he can see of her is the high crown of her hat, the strong, steady legs of her horse, the slim silhouette of her body. The sky is all lit up with pinks and purples and oranges now, blurring together overhead like a vibrant watercolor, and he watches her go until the horizon swallows her up, a faint smile on his lips.

They may not be riding off into the sunset together. But Frank thinks this is okay, too.


End file.
